Where: Uncertain. It has become customary to emend this name to *Noviomagno *regnentium and to locate it at Chichester or else the grand villa at Fishbourne attributed to a client king ?Togodumnus. However, it may be better to look elsewhere, and a strong candidate is the promontory fort jutting into the river Itchen at Bitterne, which used to be assigned (probably wrongly) to Clausentum.

Name Origin: Latin navis meant ‘ship’, but in place names it seems to have meant river. Either way, this site should be beside water. The -magus part was a common element in early place-names, such as Maromago, and probably meant something like ‘power place, administrative centre’, from PIE *magh- ‘to have power’. The regentium part is Latin for ‘of the rulers (plural)’.

Notes: See about Ptolemy's Ρηγνοι people for a discussion of the difficulties raised by Reg-, which also occurs in this area in RC's Regno and possibly in Raxtomessasenua.

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Last edited: 30 October 2018. Back to main Menu.